Trump impeachment goes to Senate

WASHINGTON — Democrats marched the impeachment case against Donald Trump to the Senate Monday night for the start of his historic trial, but Republican senators were easing off their criticism of the former president and shunning calls to convict him over the deadly siege at the U.S. Capitol.

The House prosecutors delivered the sole impeachment charge of “incitement of insurrection,” making the ceremonial walk across the Capitol to the Senate. But Republican denunciations of Trump have cooled since the Jan. 6 riot. Instead Republicans are presenting a tangle of legal arguments against the legitimacy of the trial and questions whether Trump’s repeated demands to overturn Joe Biden’s election really amounted to incitement.

Arguments in the Senate trial will begin the week of Feb. 8, and the case against Trump will test a political party still sorting itself out for the post-trump era. Republican senators are balancing the demands of deeppocketed donors who are distancing themselves from Trump and voters who demand loyalty to him.